Here we are!

1. Election Day. How can so many Americans be so dumb, so often, these days? Once in a while, I’m surprised by a miracle.
2. The time change. Moving the clocks back from so-called Daylight Savings is the real beginning of winter. Where I live, it means sunset in the middle of the afternoon. How depressing!
3. The foliage is gone. The trees are naked. The landscape’s turned black-and-white for most days.
4. It’s cold. The fact is, we have to get used to the falling temperatures. It always comes as a shock. By the time we get to February, the same readings will seem balmy.
5. Christmas songs and décor everywhere. It’s all a big retailing push. It’s not even Advent until the 29^th this year – or the end of the month. It’s SO wrong! And remember, the Twelve Days of Christmas aren’t a shopping countdown – they begin on Christmas Day itself.
6. Garden cleanup. OK, it’s not all bad. Harvesting the root crops can actually be fun. But turning off the water to the outdoor faucets, emptying the hoses and taking them to the loft of the barn, collecting fallen leaves, bringing the hammock in, along with other outdoor furniture and the ceramic pots, can get tedious.
7. Putting up outside Christmas lighting. I prefer getting this done before it turns into a knuckle-freezing trial.
8. No more yard sales. My wife’s pretty good at finding things on my everyday shopping list at way-below-retail on most Saturday mornings. Alas, any new items will have to wait till May.
9. I have to clean ash from the wood-burning stove. It needs to be done every-other-day, at the least.
10. Can’t sit in the loft of the barn. Not for long. And even then, I can’t leave the hayloft door open.

~*~

What about you?